


Shut Your Eyes; The World Drops Dead

by TrashcanGod



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Humor, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Apocalypse, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, in which jon becomes the archivist under very different circumstances, un-beta'd we die like jonny sims' characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-09 09:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashcanGod/pseuds/TrashcanGod
Summary: Two weeks into the zombie apocalypse, Jonathan Sims--fresh out of university and remaining mulishly reluctant to actually call this a "zombie apocalypse"--meets a man called Elias Bouchard.Mr. Bouchard has a small favor to ask of him.





	1. Chapter 1

Two weeks into his attempting to survive the zombie apocalypse, Jonathan Sims meets a man called Elias.

_Zombies,_ Jon can't help but scoff to himself sometimes. Out of all the real possibilities—climate change, nuclear war, cannibalistic bureaucracy—the world has ended drowning in a tide of the undead. Jon has never been one to discount the supernatural, of course, but... zombies. Really.

He was in Bournemouth when it happened, the end of the world. It was just a quick visit home; not to visit family, as he had none left, his grandmother having died years ago, but just for a bit of nostalgia. He'd just finished up at uni and had job interviews at a few research institutes lined up, so he simply thought he'd revisit his home town one more time before his life moved on to its next stage.

There had been word of some mysterious rabies-like pathogen cropping up in the Americas, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time. If it came to Europe, _then_ he'd worry about it. Besides, he thought, probably just another case of Zika-style fear mongering.

The panicked and bloodied civilians stampeding out of St Peter's Church on Sunday was unexpected, to say the least.

Upon seeing the alert of his phone, Jon tried very valiantly to shove down his distress. Having not packed much for his weekend holiday, he stuffed his belongings into his duffel bag, hotwired a car parked outside of the inn, and drove away from the city.

He'd never known how to hotwire a car. To be honest, he was a bit dissociated at the time, so he still doesn't.

Not knowing where else to go, he's kept to the countryside, vaguely heading in the general direction of London. He knows that the more populated a city the more likely it is to be full of zombie hoards—he _has_ seen films before, believe it or not—but if he's lucky, maybe that's where survivors will have holed up in a quarantine zone. He's not certain they'll actually let him in, if so. The bit mark on his forearm that's been scabbing over may just put a target on his head. Or they'll decide to experiment on him to formulate a cure. Either way, well... at least he'll have found people.

Two weeks after the first infected in Europe (in Dorset, of all places), and one since his unfortunate encounter with a particularly quick and particularly bitey undead little girl, Jon is in Alton, about halfway to London. The drive between the two would normally take no longer than a couple of hours, but he's taking it slow to be safe.

Said plan to _take it slow and be safe_ kind of falls apart when he gets out of the car, walks a few blocks, and is immediately accosted by a staggering mob.

In his instinctual panic to _run run fucking RUN,_ he doesn't really think to direct his running to his stolen car behind him. Instead, he runs farther into the town, which he promptly wants to punch himself for. He comes up on the ransacked-but-whole petrol station just as someone else is closing the door.

_“Wait!”_ he shouts desperately, the bag hanging off his shoulder thumping against his body as he sprints.

The figure at the door turns around, and when he sees Jon coming towards him, he...stops. He looks at him for a moment, with something in his expression that Jon can't quite parse out in his current state. Whatever it is, whether it's interest or shock or the lust to kill another human being, Jon really just doesn't care. What matters, is that the man holds open the door.

Jon rushes in, the undead nipping at his heels, and the strangers immediately slams the door shut, the bell above it chiming facetiously. He locks the deadbolt, and turns to observe Jon as he leans on his knees panting for breath.

“Hello there,” the stranger says, sounding perfectly collected despite the bodies rattling the glass behind him. “My name is Elias Bouchard, pleasure to meet you.”

Entirely thrown off, Jon can do no more than stutter his own name in response.

“Well, Jonathan Sims, we seem to have met at quite the fortuitous moment.”

“Um,” says Jon, “yes?”

Elias smiles primly, and Jon is taken aback by how put together the man looks regardless of the circumstance, the dress shirt neath his waistcoat only a tad bit rustled, not a single platinum blonde hair out of place.

Without a word, Elias turns on his heel to begin looking around the shop. Jon does the same.

“So,” Jon begins awkwardly as he drops a room temperature Gatorade into his bag, “are you traveling alone?”

“Only recently,” Elias says, seemingly unbothered. “I _was_ with a small party, but it got smaller and smaller, and now only I remain.”

“Oh, I—I'm sorry.”

Elias waves a hand, then props open the door of the break room to rummage about. Jon isn't sure what exactly he's looking for. “That's simply how this business goes, I suppose... _a-ha!_ ”

When Jon walks over to the open door, Elias is rifling through a purse that someone's left behind, then drops it when he pulls out what looks like a small diary. Jon elects not to ask. “I'm headed toward London,” Elias says as he flips through the journal. “I have a... sort of safe house there.”

“Oh! I'm headed to London as well.” Jon watches Elias curiously, and briefly wonders if he's about to team up with some sort of voyeur.

Elias makes eye contact and smiles, and there's something in his eyes that makes Jon think of a fox—or perhaps even less flatteringly, a snake. “Perfect! We can travel together. I can grant you safety, and you can do a favor for me in return.” Jon eyes him warily.

“And that is...?”

Elias holds out the diary, open to a page near the end. Jon can see hurried writing and stains of blood and what could be tears. “My associates and I were working on a project. We are—were—researchers,” Jon perks up at that, “and we were filing accounts of people's experiences here in the end days.”

He reaches into the leather satchel hanging off his shoulder and retrieves an old tape recorder, holding it out next to the diary. For some reason, it's already running. “I'm a bit dyslexic you see, so my dear colleague Gertrude, the archivist from our institute, was doing all the reading, bless her. She was the last one to die. I don't want her work to die with her, but seeing as it's difficult for me to read aloud, I can't exactly do it myself...”

Elias trails off meaningfully, and Jon looks from him, to the recorder, to the smudged diary, and back again. He considers for a moment; though Elias' words sounded meaningful enough, there's something giving him pause. The man's face looks sympathetic and open, but there's still something in the eyes, as if behind them is something primordial and dastardly clever. Or maybe Jon is just paranoid, as he is wont to be.

“Jon.” Elias in that very moment, as if pouncing on Jon's wavering suspicions. “Can I trust you to assist me in continuing our work?”

Jon looks at the recorder and book again. Well... regardless of hidden intentions, it's not like doing a few tape recordings can do any harm.

He nods slowly. “Okay,” he agrees. “Yes, I'll help.”

With those words, a verbal contract has unwittingly been forged.

 


	2. Statement of Emily Wong

_A faint clattering is heard, a man sitting down and placing the recorder on the floor in front of him. He clears his throat._

Account of, um... Emily Wong, in regards to the... zombie apocalypse. Account taken from the final entry in Miss Wong's diary, found in a petrol station in Alton. Recorded by Jonathan Sims.

 

I don't know what's happening.

It's all over the news, people are... infected, with something. They're _saying_ not to go outside, that the infected are violent and extremely contagious. I saw people guessing it could be some sort of rabies mutation, but... I dunno. All I can think of is Night of the Living Dead.

And of _course_ this happens when I'm working the store alone. Alan went out for his lunch, so I was watching the station while he was gone, and... It's been five hours. I don't think he's coming back.

I've locked all the doors, just in case. Honestly I'm not sure what scares me more: the infection, or the possibility of looters. I mean, Alton's generally a nice town, so I wouldn't expect it from anyone living here, but you know how people get in natural disasters. If people go absolutely mad stocking up on food and water before a snow storm, I can't imagine how they'll react to literal zombies.

I don't have any weapons, nothing to protect myself. The best thing I have is a fire extinguisher. Guess I could beat a bastard's head in with it, but still. Not exactly an apocalypse-grade arsenal.

I'm really worried about my parents. They're not picking the phone up, but I mean, that could just mean they're holed up in the basement or the lines are down or something. I don't know. I don't really want to think about it to be honest.

I think maybe in the morning, if it's all clear, I'll go out and look for them. It's not a long walk home, so it should be okay, right? It's worth a shot, I guess... Better than being stuck in here alone, at least.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

… Entry ends. I'd like to believe that Miss Wong made it okay, but considering the fact that her belongings and the fire extinguisher are still present, I have some doubts. Not to mention the blood stain I've just noticed on the wall... Maybe the people of Alton weren't as civilised as she'd hoped.

…

End recording.

 

_In the background, Elias Bouchard can be heard, his smooth voice sounding satisfied, but not surprised. “Look at that. You're a natural.”_

_Click._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a rly short update but I promise I'll upload the remaining chapter sooner sldkfj (A teaser: the cast will be growing significantly...)  
> Also hmu on Twitter if you want: [@libralibrum](https://twitter.com/libralibrum)


	3. Chapter 3

“Danny, _please_.”

It was just supposed to be a weekend hiking trip. A fun vacation, brotherly-bonding in the great outdoors. Instead...

Instead, Tim's little brother—his fantastic, pride-of-his-life little brother—is lunging and snarling at him with the ferocity of a rabid animal.

Tim is holding him back with the handle of a fire ax. His arms quake, foamy spittle sprays on his cheeks, and he looks into Danny's eyes, bloodshot and glazed over with jaundiced fog. He knows this isn't his brother anymore; after a week of zombie bullshit, he knows how this works. What he doesn't understand, is why both of them were bitten, but only Danny has lost his mind.

What he doesn't understand, is why he gets to live, just to kill what's left of his brother.

Danny attempts to lunge forward again, gnashing his teeth, and Tim knows he can't hold out for much longer. He takes a shaky breath, looks into those eyes that hold no recognition, and whispers, “I love you.”

He shoves forward and sweeps out a leg to send Danny to the ground. Then, before the thing can get up, Tim raises his ax, and brings it down on the head of what was once his little brother.

“I'm sorry...”

He falls to his knees in a puddle of brain matter, and cries.

“I'm sorry...”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jon isn't sure what he was doing wrong before he joined up with Elias, but come half a week into traveling with him, the two are already on the outskirts of London.

Though four days isn't a whole lot of time to get to know someone, to be entirely honest, Jon has found himself with more questions than he started out with. Elias, as far as he can tell, is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an uncanny ability to somehow seem to _know_ things.

After leaving the gas station that was the scene of the apparent unfortunate death of one Emily Wong, Jon had secured them a new vehicle while Elias leisurely watched out for any approaching dangers. (Elias asked how he learned to hotwire a vehicle; Jon said he wasn't actually sure. For some reason, Elias looked vaguely pleased by this.)

Their first night together, Elias drove them up to an abandoned countryside cottage that he seemed to know the exact location of. Jon figured he just knew the area. That evening, as the two prepared to settle at opposite couches, Elias offered to take first watch before saying offhandedly, “You should wash that bite, by the way.”

Jon stammered dumbly in response. “I—what do—um...”

Elias, however, simply waved him off and directed him to the roll of gauze in his satchel. In it, Jon also found a case filled with cassette tapes, half labeled and the rest not.

“Feel free to give them a listen during your watch,” Elias had said. “It may do you some good to learn about your predecessor.” An odd way of wording it, but nonetheless, Jon took him up on the offer.

Again, he was left with more questions than answers.

In dilapidated London, the two take a winding back alley path to an old ornate building. “This is it,” Elias says, striding up the cobblestone steps to the door. Jon lags behind to examine the building with wide eyes.

“Oh. Wow, I... I expected your safe house to be, well, your _house,_ not...” The plaque by the front door, age stained brass embossed with the image of an owl appearing to lie in wait, gives him pause. “Wait—is this the Magnus Institute?”

Elias glances behind him as he unlocks the door, a slim brow raised. “That it is. A problem?”

“No, no, actually, I ah,” Jon scrambles to explain, “I had an interview scheduled here. For a research position. It was for the week after the outbreak, but then... Well. You know.”

The smile that tugs at the corners of Elias's mouth is smugly satisfied, bordering on predatory—but the expression vanishes just as quickly, replaced by a more metered out quirk of the lips. “Well Mr. Sims,” he says as he opens the heavy door, “I supposed you've gotten the job.”

Jon smothers the instinctive satisfaction of a job well done, and follows Elias's beckoning into the foyer of the institute. If there's any place that'd be safe during an apocalypse of this nature, he does suppose it'd be a place like the Magnus Institute.

The place is, as far as he can tell, completely empty. Elias leads him downstairs to the basement, passing a sign pointing down labeled  _ARCHIVES._ Jon feels a tingle in his spine at the concept of so much knowledge and information at his disposal, everything that's accumulated over the last two centuries of records and research. (If there's a chill as they descend, he figures it's simply the effect of entering a basement, and disregards it.)

“This was Gertrude's office,” Elias says, stopping by a door with opaque glass and peeling letters reading _Head Archivist_. He grasps the metal knob and swings it inward to lead him in. “Congratulations, Jon, you've been promoted.”

It is at this moment that they hear a combative shout that's closer to a cry, and see a fire extinguisher swinging out from beside the door. Elias dodges it with unthinking ease. Jon's reflexes are not quite as polished.

There's a metallic _clang_ as the extinguisher clips the side of his forehead. Jon stumbles back and clutches his head, gritting out a very irritated, “ _Ow._ ”

“Hello, Martin,” he hears Elias greet calmly, if not a tiny bit amused.

“Oh, my god, E— _Elias?!”_  a man squeaks—and really, Jon cannot describe his voice at the moment as anything other than a squeak. “Elias, I—I thought you were—well, not dead I figured you probably wouldn't let this kill you,” Elias hums approvingly, “but I didn't think you were actually gonna come back!”

Jon looks up, one eye closed against the sluggish trickle of blood leaking past his hand, and sees a young ginger fellow with a round freckled face and cable knit sweater. He's flushed to his ears, eyes big and round, expression only growing in its number of exclamation points when he sees Jon.

“Oh god, I'm so sorry, are you okay?!” he rushes out, dropping the extinguisher to skitter closer and hover anxiously. “I'm so, so sorry, just, Sasha and I have been the only ones here for _ages,_ 'cause we were working the weekend when the outbreak hit, and she's been out scavenging and stuff and we have a knock we do whenever we come back and I didn't hear the knock so I thought you were—are you okay? I'm _so_ sorry!”

Jon watches with some sort of morbid fascination as Martin rambles on and on. “I'm... fine. Just _bleeding_ a bit.”

Martin flushes further while somehow simultaneously going a bit pallid, moving to tentatively flutter his hands by Jon's shoulder and upper back as if for support. “Oh god, I, let me clean that up, come on—um...” He freezes mid-movement and looks at Jon inquisitively, then glances to Elias, who is watching on with benevolence. “Who are you? Exactly?”

“Martin, meet your new boss,” Elias says pleasantly, hands clasped behind him. “This is Jonathan Sims.”

Martin looks at his new boss, whom he's just afflicted with a head injury, and looks horrified.

“Um,” he stammers, “what about Gertrude?”

“She died,” Elias tells him plainly.

“Oh! Oh, wow, um... How?”

“It _is_ the apocalypse Martin,” says Elias, and though that explains very little, he pulls the tape deck and case from his bag to place them on the desk, then steps around the two and into the hall. “Now then, you assist Jon in cleaning up, and I'll be up in my office.”

With that, he goes, Martin and Jon watching as he enters the stairwell at the end of the hall.

“Um,” Martin says once he's gone, “come on, let me just... show you to the bathroom...”

 

Jon soon finds himself seated on the edge of a tub (oddly enough, it really is a proper bathroom—he supposes late work nights aren't uncommon here) with Martin crouching in front of him, worrying at his lip as he dabs at the wound, which had begun to bleed a bit more in earnest once Jon took his hand away.

“I really am sorry about this,” Martin says again. Jon sighs.

“It's fine,” he insists. “With the end of the world, I suppose we're all a bit on edge.”

“Oh, haha, yeah,” Martin chuckles weakly. “Zombies. Really something, isn't it?”

Jon's mouth twists in distaste. “Don't call them 'zombies,' it makes them sound... campy.”

“Oh! Sorry, um...” He trails off, then starts again. “The cut's not too deep. Head wounds tend to bleed a bit, but you won't need stitches or anything...”

“Lucky me.” Martin flushes again, and Jon feels a tiny bit bad for it. “Thank you for your help,” he says sincerely. Martin seems to perk up.

“Of course! I mean, kind of my job to help, eh, new boss?” He trails off again, wetting a paper towel to gently wipe away the dried blood. “What... _did_ happen to Gertrude, if you don't mind me asking?”

“To tell you the truth, I... don't really know,” Jon says, averting his eyes with a thoughtful frown. “When I met Elias he was alone; said the others he'd been with hadn't made it. Then he asked me to join him, had me help, erm—continue his friend's work, I believe he phrased it. So I recorded some statements on our way here, and...” He shrugs. “I suppose I'm head archivist now?”

“Huh,” Martin says. “'Pose you were pretty lucky to run into him then. The Institute's probably the safest place in England right now.” He gently presses a bandage to Jon's head, careful to avoid getting any hair caught in the adhesive, and throws the paper towel in the trash. “Done! I'll um, try not to hit you in the face anymore?”

“Yes, that would be appreciated,” Jon says flatly as he stands. “Thank you, uh. Martin.”

Martin grins weakly and stands as well, knees cracking a bit as they straighten. He opens the door into the hall, just as they hear a rhythmic knock coming from the stairwell. _Knock knock, knock knock-knock._

“Oh, that'll be Sasha!” Martin exits the washroom, cupping a hand by his mouth to shout, “ _All clear!”_

As the two round the corner, the door at the end of the corridor opens. A young woman with tight coils of hair pulled back behind her head enters, a grey smudge of dust standing out against her cheek. “Hey, guess who found us some dried fruit,” she greets, before noticing Jon. “And looks like _you_ got us a new friend...?”

“I, ah, came with Elias.”

“This is Jon, he's head archivist, now.”

Sasha stares, brow raised above the round frame of her glasses, then eventually shrugs. “Alright then, I guess.” She opens the door to the head archivist office, the other two following, as Jon hears her muttering, “Not like I'm gonna question Elias's weird management methods, picking up employees in the apocalypse...”

Martin smiles at Jon, a slight bit apologetic. Jon quirks an eyebrow back.

In the office, Sasha is emptying out the loot in her knapsack onto the desk, having moved the tapes and recorder (which at some point has started running for some reason) to one side.

“Not a whole lot, but the stuff in the safe room should still last us a good while. Just wanted to change things up a bit, getting sick and tired of canned peaches and beans...”

“There's a _safe room?”_

Sasha looks at Martin, who turns to Jon sheepishly. “Yeah, er... Come on.”

He leads him through another door and between the dusty shelves of the archives, Sasha bringing up the rear, to a steel-enforced door that looks far more recently updated than anything else in the building. He lifts and pulls a large sliding lock, then puts the most of his body weight into pushing it open. Inside are a cot and some blankets laid out on the floor, amongst rows and shelves of old filing boxes. Jon notices a climate control panel on the nearby wall, as well as what looks like a secret passage built into the cinder block wall that's propped open to reveal a walk-in closet of canned food and bottled water.

“Why,” says Jon, “does the archive have a panic room?”

Martin shrugs.

Jon shakes his head slowly, and gets the feeling that even had it not been post-apocalypse, this job would have been far beyond a simple archival position.

“I... need a shower.”

“Oh, okay!” Martin calls after him, “Try not to get the bandage wet!”

“What's he got the bandage for?” Jon hears Sasha question.

“I, um. Hit him with the fire extinguisher?”

“Holy shit, _Martin._ ”

“Stop laughing...!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's it. That's the concept. No clue where the thing'd go from here, other than that Tim comes to the archives (he was also already an employee, he was just away for the weekend), people who were marked by entities are immune to the bite, and all the cults and stuff are like other bandit survival groups. Jon probably finds Georgie at some point and offers for her to stay at the archives with them but she's like eh, I'm good. Just a whole lotta concept, and a big ol question mark for plot. I'd like to continue it eventually because the ideas are fun so yeah, maybe some day
> 
> (side note, I would die for Timothy Stoker and the world needs more fics with him)
> 
> Check out my twitter [@libralibrum](https://twitter.com/libralibrum) for some more Magnus stuff (along with ffxv and others) and writing updates and art and also some stuff about my own novel that I'm actually starting to talk about in public!
> 
> Thanks for reading this little bud of a story, incomplete though it may be !!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hello I got really into The Magnus Archives recently and then I had this fun little idea wherein The Corruption, The Hunt, and maybe The Flesh all team up and throw an Apocalypse Extravaganza. At the moment it's really just a premise, but I like what I'd written for it, so I guess I'll continue it if I figure out the rest!
> 
> I'll upload the next chapter in a day or two, just to space things out a little bit.


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